Joy Garnett: 'Predator 1' Wikileaks series* (2012) oil on canvas. 14 x 14 inches
Proteus Gowanus
543 Union Street (at Nevins)
Brooklyn, NY 11215 [MAP/DIRECTIONS]
718.243.1572
Gallery Hours
Thursday & Friday, 3–6 pm
Saturday & Sunday, 12–6 pm
Secret Wars
January 12 - April 7, 2013
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 12, 7pm
Secret Wars, the second exhibition in Proteus Gowanus’ yearlong exploration of Battle, explores the cryptic ways of warfare waged behind the cloak of invisibility. From neurophysical conflict deep inside the human amygdala, to the broadcast signals used by spies and intelligence agencies, to the everyday observation of ordinary citizens by omniscient bureaucracies, Secret Wars reveals covert communications hiding in plain sight. Curated by Proteus Gowanus creative director Tammy Pittman and anthropologist Thomas Ross Miller, the exhibition brings artists from New York, Amsterdam and Berlin to trace the gaps, silences, and blackouts that conceal vital and deadly knowledge.
Who controls secret information, and who has the power to understand it? How do we protect ourselves from unseen enemies? Who wins and who loses when the battle is unending and unknowable? Through art, artifacts, books, sound and surveillance, these installations render what is absent present and what is invisible visible. Inside a special room, mysterious and hypnotic short-wave radio messages in unbreakable codes are beamed to hidden spies. Lost treasures, occult symbols and predator drones appear and disappear, closely guarded enigmas shrouded in obscure and half-forgotten codes.
Artists and works include:
Front404 – PanoptICONS
Joy Garnett – Predator series
David Goren – “Atencion! Seis Siete Tres Siete Cero”: The Mystery of the Shortwave Numbers Stations
Nene Humphrey – Circling the Center
Anna Livia Löwendahl-Atomic – NØbjects and Otophgraphs from The Mu{e}sum
Renée Ridgway – Revelation of the Concealed
Smudge Studio – TRANSCOM
Bryan M. Wilson – Canticle for Sebeok (Atomic Priesthood) with
J. Morgan Puett & Katie Marie Coble - Vestments for Ten Millennium (Atomic Priest Suit)
*Joy Garnett's paintings have utilized representations of the 'techno-military sublime' since the late 1990s. These four paintings are part of her recent 'Predator' or 'Wikileaks' project, (2011 - ongoing), comprised of multiple series of monochromatic target or grid-like compositions that use night vision and heat-seeking imagery as source material. Based on screen-grabs of various declassified or leaked US military videos of secret operations, the Predator series takes technical images of machine vision and translates them into ambiguous objects.
